


The Moon Is In the Gutter

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Disturbing Themes, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22946353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: … Mañana.
Relationships: Thomas Armitage/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Kudos: 22





	The Moon Is In the Gutter

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story comes from the song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds of the same name.  
> This story takes place during the events of "The C, the C, the Open C", after Tozer tells Hickey that he witnessed Tuunbaq absorbing Collins' soul, and before Armitage is sent with the party to kidnap Francis.  
> I am not involved in the production of The Terror. No one pays me to do this. This story and the work it's based on are fiction. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

The thought flares, a candle coming to life in the dark. When it’s safe to do so, Thomas will tell Pilkington that he plans to leave camp as soon as the rest are sleeping, to make for the ships, never mind the danger, and is Pilkington coming? Better to die out there on the waste, Thomas will say, already feeling himself grow passionate composing the words he will speak, better to die out there on the waste, to succumb to starvation or be murdered by savages or dragged off by beasts, than to stay here a second longer. They’ve gone as far as they can with Hickey, and Hickey becomes increasingly impossible, his plans assuming more the character of whims, and to stay will certainly mean their doom. To save themselves, they must go, whatever the risk; whatever they must leave behind. He feels a presentiment of saying the words, how they gather in his throat, ready to spill; even of the later flight, his limbs already aching from a sprint he’s yet to make. His heart beats in sympathy, in his throat, in the palms of his hands, and a sickly heat, like that of fever, creeps through him. Tozer walks away from their makeshift hearth, his expression troubled for reasons Thomas can imagine but can’t concern himself with, now that he has made his decision. He and Pilkington look at each other, but neither says anything. Finally, weary from all of that doing nothing, sighing, Thomas gets up, and goes to his tent.  
Some time later, it could be minutes or hours, who knows in this God-forsaken place, devoid even of the reason necessary for time to pass as it should--  
There comes a sound of approach outside. Hesitant footsteps on the shales, and the flapping of the hide of the tent beneath a hand trying to knock on it as on a door. Thomas opens the tent expecting to see Pilkington, already relieved, and somewhat disappointed, that Pilkington has spared him the trouble of stating what they must both know to be necessary, but finds Tozer.  
For a moment, Thomas can only stare at Tozer, his heart again taking up its gallop, his breath hitching. Tozer nods toward the inside of Thomas’ dwelling. Holding the tent open, Thomas steps aside, muttering what could be a greeting, an apology, or an expression of surprise.  
“How did we leave it?” Tozer asks.  
Thomas shakes his head. “Leave what?”  
“Do I have to worry about you doing something rash?”  
Thomas shakes his head again, too quickly, stricken at having been caught, at having made himself so easy to catch.  
“Good,” Tozer says.  
Before he can stop himself, he begins: “After what he did-” Thomas’ heart pounds all the more with the words, and the emotion behind them; though, Thomas doesn’t know for certain to what he refers, for, surely, he has his own share of guilt, only that he finds that he’s furious with Hickey. Then, the anger melts into a nauseous sort of confusion, and he asks Tozer, more softly, “Why are we still protecting him?”  
Frowning, Tozer opens his mouth slightly, closes it again. His expression is difficult to interpret, but Thomas finds that he doesn’t really have to work to. For, then, suddenly, without being told or even thinking much about it, Thomas understands, the terrible meaning behind everything that’s happened to them, since… Perhaps since they were still on the ships, he thinks bitterly; though, the bitterness is as much for himself as for Tozer. No one could lead Tozer, meaning that some of this, at least, must be to his liking, but Thomas had to have let himself be led. He had to have wished to be led. He’d had to let emotion make him weak, and to purposely mistake that weakness for boldness, going someplace for the sake of following those already on their way. He’d tried to stop it, but he hadn’t been able to; only let himself be carried away. For what?  
He can only feign ignorance. He had wanted to be carried away. He knew what he was promised, without the words being uttered. All others, even Hickey, he must hold blameless, for it was a promise that he’d made to himself. Not even a promise. A stupid wish. A folly. All of these, another way of saying that he had hoped.  
Though, looking at Tozer, now, that strange sadness in his eyes, which Thomas has never seen before and wishes to never see again, Thomas thinks that, perhaps, Tozer had been moved in the same way, after all.  
It is still a stupid thing to think. What could Tozer have hoped for, wanted from Hickey? Thomas may have made his bed, but it was in the unspoken understanding that some things were beyond what he could have reached for on his own. He’d needed the promise of risk, the opportunity to be bold. A reason to be brave. Somebody to be brave for.  
Tozer puts his hand on Thomas’ arm, and Thomas looks for a moment too long into Tozer’s eyes, at his mouth, and then quickly looks down and even more quickly, away. He knows that his expression doesn’t resemble at all something innocent like surprise. He felt himself color from the contact, and he colors even more with each second of horrible awareness that washes over both himself and Tozer. Slowly, he makes himself look up, into Tozer’s eyes, searching for God knows what in them. Ignorance, hopefully, Tozer thinking that Thomas is just stupid, or mad; anything but the truth.  
No, that’s not what Thomas is looking for.  
And it’s not what he finds, Tozer’s expression softening into one that promises consolation. “It’s all right,” Tozer says, an extraordinary thing to say under the circumstances, as nothing about any of this is all right. Though, when Tozer raises his hand from Thomas’ arm to his face, Thomas wills it to be so. Lets himself believe, even. Never mind that he’s being taken in twice over, and knows it; gulled again by his own absurdity as surely as an animal that doesn’t know a trap when it sees one, cannot tell peril from safety. Tozer would not be here if not for Hickey, and that is that.  
“Don’t,” Thomas says, even as he leans into Tozer’s hand; knowing that he doesn’t mean it, knowing that he’ll happily accept even the semblance of what he wants, no matter what horrible price will be extracted at the other end of that bargain. Even if he is being snared, the better for somebody to carve him up. Then, panic grips him, real fear, as Tozer draws closer. “What we’ve been eating,” he murmurs, finding for his feeling only partial expression in spoken words, or even in his own mind, it being almost literally unthinkable. It’s absurd, made absurd by that ‘we’. Neither he nor Tozer is innocent of anything, so one could not befoul the other, yet it still seems wrong, as though a tender action, itself could be befouled simply by their presence. Cursed.  
He is, himself, probably already cursed, condemned, at least, so anything he does is necessarily cursed, as well. If he is to die here, or however improbably, that he finds himself somehow eternally bound to Hickey, then when will Thomas again find himself in a position to be touched this way, by anybody? Thinking it makes him feel lost, as though atop a flat and stagnant sea; its calm surface concealing untold horrors below. He needs to hold onto something.  
No, not just that.  
Not the prospect of lost possibilities, in a general sense. This one.  
This is what he wants to hold onto.  
“Never mind,” he says, and puts his arms around Tozer.  
“Are you sure?” Tozer asks.  
“No,” Thomas says, but kisses Tozer before Tozer can ask again, steeling himself against his dread to taste some trace of offal. Of blood, perhaps. All Thomas can taste, though, is tobacco smoke. Dread parts and dissolves, and all of that is forgotten, as he’s kissed by Tozer, held in Tozer’s arms. He lets himself feel the strength in Tozer’s back, his shoulders, all the more marvelous for how sick, how weak they all are. How does Tozer remain so steady, when they’re all falling to bits? But Tozer’s always been this way, somehow resisting what other men succumb to; somehow, never really changed, never faltering, never failing, no matter what.  
Thomas would have followed him anywhere.  
As Tozer’s mouth opens against his, his hands finding Thomas’ waist, Thomas admits to himself that he still would.  
He’ll follow Tozer, now, in this, never happier to be led; grateful, for once, for his willingness to be directed, his own tendency to yield, to even in action, be at the mercy of something outside of himself. He hadn’t felt anything in so long, had numbed himself, even in hope, however pointless or strangled, to desire, so that to feel it now, for a reason, not simply for its own sake, is overwhelming. His tongue is in Tozer’s mouth, and Tozer’s hands are on his hips, holding Thomas close against him. Where their bodies meet is the friction of cloth against skin; one body separated from the other by so little.  
Then, by nothing, Tozer’s hand slipping beneath the band of his trousers, into his drawers.  
He presses his face into Tozer’s neck, smells smoke and sweat and old linen, holds onto him all the more tightly because they are unwashed; because they’re foul, in deed and in fact, but it is bearable. It’s bearable, if Thomas isn’t alone. He unbuttons Tozer’s shirt, slips his hand inside. Laughing, Tozer wriggles away.  
“Jesus, Tommy,” he says, still laughing, holding his shirt against himself, “your hand’s like a bleeding icicle!” Then, softly, “Give it to me.” Thomas gives Tozer his hand, and Tozer rubs it between his own, breathes out warm onto it. When Tozer gives it back, Thomas pulls back the front of Tozer’s shirt, moves his hand slowly under the material.  
“Is that better?” Thomas asks.  
“Worlds better,” Tozer says, pulls him close, and kisses him. Thomas’ hand is caught in the press of their bodies, his wrist at an uncomfortable angle. He doesn’t mind. He can feel Tozer’s heart beating. He doesn’t mind, at all. He keeps his hand there as Tozer again reaches into his trousers, his drawers. He keeps it there, all the while, feeling Tozer’s heart continuing to mete out his life, feeling the breath enter and leave his body, feeling the warmth of his skin. The warmth of Tozer’s hand on him, the joy in every stroke of it, not diminished for the awkward position, for being clothed, for the cold around them. One doesn’t appreciate warmth unless one has known cold. He’s been so cold for so long, and now, he’s losing himself in that warmth.  
He will be lost.  
He is lost.  
He doesn’t even try to keep quiet. The cry he lets out sounds like one of agony. It’s only fitting for this place. To spite it, he cries out again, his eyes clenched shut, holding Tozer’s hand by the wrist.  
After a moment, he lets go, falls sighing against Tozer, not caring how he looks or sounds or anything else about himself, but the feeling of Tozer close to him.  
Outside, Thomas hears someone calling his name; just the ‘r’ and ‘age’ at a distance, but it’s unmistakable. It’s getting closer, but even without the recognition that proximity brings, he knows that it’s Hickey who calls him; that swinging, summoning tone that is almost mocking. A sudden panic grasps him. Hickey knows where he is, and who he’s with. Hickey knows all, has always known all, been controlling all, the entire time, and will now have terrible vengeance on them for their treachery.  
“He’s calling you,” Tozer says softly, his hand on Thomas’s brow, brushing back his hair.  
With that, panic evaporates.  
“I want to stay,” he says, placing his hands on Tozer’s hips, allowing one to move inward, press gently between Tozer’s legs. “I should stay.”  
“Never mind about that,” Tozer says, almost scolding, but his expression is sad. That, Thomas finds, he cannot bear.  
Thomas doesn’t move, and Tozer makes no effort to push him away, his arms still around Thomas. Not even Tozer believes what he says, and Thomas lets it give him strength. “I want to stay,” Thomas says resolutely. Tozer smiles, in understanding. He must also know how little this matters. How Hickey has made them all less than nothing. How they let him do it.  
But it does matter, when Tozer pulls him closer, holds Thomas against him. It matters more than anything.  
Hickey can wait.


End file.
